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• Date of publication Dec 15, 2015 Category: Commentary

  The time has come for managing and sharing research data in universities

  by Ignasi Labastida

  During the last decade universities have developed policies and infrastructures to support open access to publications but now it is time to move a step forward. There is an increasing demand for accessing data supporting the research results to validate and reproduce them. Therefore universities have to be prepared for this new challenge that goes beyond dissemination because it requires a strategy for managing research data within institutions. In this paper I will try to give some hints on how to deal with this challenge that can be framed in the new open science movement aimed at providing openness in all the whole cycle of research.

  Volume 14 • Issue 04 • 2015

• Date of publication Dec 15, 2015 Category: Commentary

  Open Access: what's in it for me as an early career researcher?

  by Nancy Pontika

  When entering the research world, Early Career Researchers (ECRs) may encounter difficulties building a good reputation for their research, its quality and the research results. Open access is the movement that could assist ECRs to: (a) widely disseminate their scholarly outputs, (b) demonstrate the research and societal impact of their work and, (c) organise online research portfolios that can be accessed by all researchers, as well as prospective employers.

  Volume 14 • Issue 04 • 2015

• Date of publication Dec 15, 2015 Category: Commentary

  Preprints and peer review: a lesson from physics

  by Alessandro Delfanti

  For decades, particle physicists have been using open access archives of preprints, i.e. research papers shared before the submission to peer reviewed journals. With the shift to digital archives, this model has proved to be attractive to other disciplines: but can it be exported? In particle physics, archives do not only represent the medium of choice for the circulation of scientific knowledge, but they are central places to build a sense of belonging and to define one's role within the community.

  Volume 14 • Issue 04 • 2015

• Date of publication Dec 10, 2015 Category: Article

  Science bloggers' self-perceived communication roles

  by Paige Brown Jarreau

  This study addresses an open question about science bloggers' self-perceived roles as science communicators. Previous research has investigated the roles science journalists see themselves engaging in, but such research has failed to capture the experiences of science bloggers as a broad and diverse group that is yet often very different in their practices from professional journalists. In this study, a survey of over 600 science bloggers reveals that on the broadest level, science bloggers see themselves engaging most often as explainers of science and public intellectuals. Perceived communication role depends predominantly on occupation, science communication training, blog affiliation and gender.

  Volume 14 • Issue 04 • 2015

• Date of publication Nov 24, 2015 Category: Book Review

  A handy guide to science-communication theory and practice

  by Achintya Rao

  The ever-changing nature of academic science communication discourse can make it challenging for those not intimately associated with the field ― scientists and science-communication practitioners or new-comers to the field such as graduate students ― to keep up with the research. This collection of articles provides a comprehensive overview of the subject and serves as a thorough reference book for students and practitioners of science communication.

  Volume 14 • Issue 04 • 2015

• Date of publication Mar 13, 2014 Category: Article

  The passive voice in scientific writing. The current norm in science journals

  by Leong Ping Alvin

  In contrast to past consensus, many authors now feel that the passive voice compromises the quality of scientific writing. However, studies involving scientific articles are rare. Using a corpus of 60 scientific research articles from six journals, this study examined the proportion of passives used, and the contexts and forms in which they occurred. The results revealed that about 30% of all clauses were passive clauses. The canonical form was most pervasive, followed by the bare passive; together, they constituted more than a quarter of all clauses analyzed. Passives were typically used in main clauses, followed by relative and adverbial clauses. Roughly 29% of all passives were located in the methodology section. Based on the results, the proportion of passives in scientific writing may stabilize at about 30%. It is unlikely to dramatically drop any further since the trend suggests that passives are still widely used in the methodology section.

  Volume 13 • Issue 01 • 2014

• Date of publication Mar 16, 2012 Category: Article

  Trends in scientific publications in physical education: a multifaceted field?

  by Jacqueline Leta , Suely Rosa

  The paper investigates diversity in terms of interest and goals in international research in Physical Education (PE). This investigation is based on publications in PE indexed in three major international databases, namely Medline, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). To identify these publications in Medline, we searched for “physical education and training”. As for the WoS and Scopus, we searched for “physical education” in the title, abstract or key-word. We also searched for “physical education” in the affiliation address only in the Scopus database, which we describe as Scopus-Afill. Using these strategies, we found 2,257 documents in Medline, 6,107 in WoS, 8,807 in Scopus and 5,838 in Scopus – Affil. for the 1991-2005 period. Our findings offer evidence that PE research is mostly associated with biological and medical sciences. However, our results show that the field is multifaceted when it comes to the nature of PE contributions to knowledge.

  Volume 11 • Issue 01 • 2012

• Date of publication Dec 19, 2008 Category: Article

  Changes in publication statistics when electronic submission was introduced in an international applied science journal

  by Howard J. Swatland

  In a refereed journal in the food and agriculture sector, papers were tracked over a five-year period during the introduction of electronic submissions. Papers originated in the Americas and Pacific region and were processed in Canada. Acceptance times for revised papers were reduced (P < 0.001) to 59% of the original, from 156.5 ± 69.1 days to 92.8 ± 57.5 days. But the start of electronic submission coincided with a change in the geographical origin of papers, with papers from Anglophone countries changing from a 61% majority to a 42% minority. It is possible that submissions from non-Anglophone sources were facilitated, thus creating challenges to the traditional Anglophone reviewer population.

  Volume 7 • Issue 04 • 2008

• Date of publication Jun 20, 2008 Category: Commentary

  Collaborative Web between open and closed science

  by Alessandro Delfanti

  “Web 2.0” is the mantra enthusiastically repeated in the past few years on anything concerning the production of culture, dialogue and online communication. Even science is changing, along with the processes involving the communication, collaboration and cooperation created through the web, yet rooted in some of its historical features of openness. For this issue, JCOM has asked some experts on the most recent changes in science to analyse the potential and the contradictions lying in online collaborative science. The new open science feeds on the opportunity to freely contribute to knowledge production, sharing not only data, but also software and hardware. But it is open also to the outside, where citizens use Web 2.0 instruments to discuss about science in a horizontal way.

  The future of the scientific paper

  by Bora Zivkovic

  Grid computing and e-science: a view from inside

  by Stefano Cozzini

  Public domain, copyright licenses and the freedom to integrate science

  by John Wilbanks

  Science via podcast

  by Ilenia Picardi and Simona Regina

  To blog or not to blog, not a real choice there...

  by Elisabetta Tola

  Volume 7 • Issue 02 • 2008

• Date of publication Jun 20, 2008 Category: Commentary

  The future of the scientific paper

  by Bora Zivkovic

  Will the use of the Web change the way we produce scientific papers? Science go through cycles, and the development of communication of science reflects the development of science itself. So, new technologies and new social norms are altering the formality of the scientific communication, including the format of the scientific paper. In the future, as PLoS One is experimenting right now, journals will be online hosts for all styles of scientific contributions and ways to link them together, with different people contributing to a body of work and making science more interdisciplinary and interconnected.

  Volume 7 • Issue 02 • 2008